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IN THIS SITE
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Some links on these archived pages are not operative.
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This NONCOMMERCIAL site is a harmless hobby of George Garrigues, who has lived in the Westside Village district of Palms for 12 years. These pages have no connection with any organization.
Send him e-mail with corrections and comments.
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LOCAL HONOR
A certificate of appreciation was presented to LAPD Senior Lead Officer Anthony Vasquez at a meeting of the Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Watch on Feb. 15.
Vasquez was also given a plaque of appreciation for the entire force at LAPD's Pacific Division.
With him is Bea Steelman, who was in charge of the event.
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 Westside Village would gain if the Mar Vista Community Council's boundary were at the 405 Freeway
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If Westside Village were to join up with Palms, the Village would get more money from the city every year thereafter — on a per capita basis.
A proposal has been made by more than 200 petitioners to move Westside Village from Mar Vista into a new Palms-Westside Village Neighborhood Council.
 If that change were in effect for next fiscal year, then Westside Villagers would gain about $6,580 in additional funds.
(And — paradoxically — the other Mar Vista Community Council neighborhoods would receive about $35,000 more from the city for street repairs and other projects without Westside Village than they will with it — because they would be in a smaller district.)
It's all because:
• Palms without Westside Village is a small area with a compact population of only 31,000 people. (Smaller populations receive more money per resident than larger ones do, and vice versa.)
• The city is making a special allocation of $100,000 next year to each neighborhood council for street repair, along with the regular $50,000 yearly grant for overhead and other projects.
The 2000 census says the Westmar area (Mar Vista, Westdale and North Westdale), west of the 405, has some 38,870 residents.
But because Westside Village also is a part of the Mar Vista Community Council, that council's area has swollen to 50,417 people on both sides of the 405 freeway.
That gives it a large population, so the $150,000 has to be shared among more people.
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Westside Village, a rather extensive residential area east of the freeway with a heavy concentration of apartments and condos, had 11,547 residents in 2000.
So if those people were to merge with Palms, the resulting enlarged Palms-Westside Village district would have a population of 42,547.
That's not going to happen by June 1, though, so Historic Palms will get the sole use of the $150,000 grant in 2005-2006.
(Westside Village can use part of a similar grant to the Mar Vista Council.)
Whenever a boundary shift is done, however, then Westside Villagers will be able to tap into and have some say over the regular $50,000-a-year-grant from the city to a Palms-Village Council.
Westside Villagers would be 37% of the population of the proposed new Palms-Westside Village neighborhood council.
The Village amounts to 23% of the population in the Mar Vista Community Council.
Do the math and the figures come out as in the charts below.
The newly certified Palms Neighborhood Council has not yet taken a stand on the boundary issue. It is still planning for its first election to be held on May 22, 2005, and its elected Representative Assembly may be asked to do something about the petitions soon thereafter.
The present Board of Directors of the Mar Vista Community Council has been given the petitions to change the boundary but has not acted on them.
Neither has the city's Board of Neighborhood Commissioners.
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PRESENT BORDER AT OVERLAND
2005-2006
Mar Vista Community Council gets $2.96 per person next year for a population of 50,417. Total $150,000.
Westmar communities (Mar Vista, Westdale, North Westdale) get $2.96 per person for a population of 38,870. Total $115,055.
Westside Village (in yellow) gets $2.96 per person for a population of 11,547. Total $34,179.
Palms gets $4.84 per person for a population of 31,000. Total $150,000.
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PROPOSED BORDER AT THE 405
2005-2006
MVCC (Mar Vista, Westdale and North Westdale) would get $3.86 per person for a population of 38,870. Total $150,000.
Westside Village would get $3.53 a person for a population of 11,547. Total $40,760.
Palms-WV together would get $3.53 a person for a population of 42,547. Total $150,000.
And the Palms share of that for a population of 31,000 would be $109,430.
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Figures may not total properly because of rounding.
Just divide the figures by 3 to see what future years would bring (at $50,000 a year).
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Click here for more information about the $100,000 street-repair plan.
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BIKE-RODEO QUEEN JEANE PARKER IS LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT FALL'S EVENT
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Jeane Parker (in the yellow dress above), who has worked on the Palms area's bicycle rodeo for the past 10 years, is already moving ahead on next fall's shindig.
She said she'd rather not look back on the 2004 bike rodeo, which was held at the farthest northwest limit of Palms, at St. John’s Presbyterian Church on National Blvd. (see photo above and the separate story on that event, here).
Palms public schools were all in the midst of wiring projects last fall, so none of them were available, she said. |
The year Parker wants to bring the rodeo back to a more central location — she mentioned Palms Middle School, Palms Elementary School and Charnock Elementary as possible locations.
She ruled out Mar Vista Park because it is "not in Palms."
Parker says she will keep us posted on her search for a central location. She wants a return to the days when "hundreds" of children showed up for the festivities. |
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SUN SPOTS
Purely personal opinion by George Garrigues
OK, send the cops after me. Put me in jail. Fine me a thousand bucks. Do what you will. I admit it, I am a lawbreaker.
On Saturday afternoon, Jan. 29, 2005, I broke Government Code 54900, et seq., to smithereens. I violated the Brown Act, which is the state's open-meetings law.
It happened like this: A bunch of the boys (and one girl) were planning a meeting of the Nominations and Elections Committee of the Palms Community Council. I was a member of this committee.
We had been told by the city's Department of Neighborhood Empowerment that all of the meetings of the Community Council and its committees have to be
(1) Within the boundaries of the Palms council.
(2) In a place that is compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (the ADA).
Heck, I knew that. As a Los Angeles Times reporter several decades ago I used the Brown Act to force a Burbank City Council committee to reschedule a meeting because it hadn't posted the required notice. I wrote articles about the Brown Act, for heaven's sake! (Click here to see one of them.)
So I went into this law-breaking mode with my eyes wide open.
The boys and one girl on the committee couldn't think of any places in Palms that would be available on a Saturday afternoon and also fulfill the criteria — except one, the Overland Cafe at Charnock and Overland.
So we scheduled our meeting there (courtesy of manager Mark Sands), and one of us posted the required notices on five bulletin boards all over Palms. I myself put notices at the Palms-Rancho Park and Culver City libraries.
We gathered at the cafe and found that — unfortunately —the babble of conversation and clink of cutlery was so dominant that obviously we couldn't hold a meeting there. What's more, nobody except the committee members showed up.
Now — this is where the story becomes sordid.
We were standing on the sidewalk. We didn't have a place to meet within Palms that was ADA-compliant.
A committee member offered to host everybody at his house, which was — well, I have to protect the identity of my fellow lawbreaker, so I can't say where it was, except that it wasn't inside the official Palms district and it boasted neither a wheelchair ramp nor an elevator.
But we went over there anyway and got a lot of work done and were, I believe, really effective in working for the betterment of our neighborhood.
The story doesn't end there. We had two more meetings at my place.
My building has an elevator, but the bathroom won't take a wheelchair, and it is officially just outside the Palms Community Council boundary (by about fifty yards), so once again I was breaking the Brown Act, so I dare anybody out there to do something about it.
 In fact, I double-dare you; I would like to see the publicity for Palms in the newspapers and on tv when the cops come busting down my door and haul me away, leaving my little dog behind to wonder where I have gone.
Until then, the committee on which I served will just go on doing good for the Palms community, Brown Act or no Brown Act.
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But seriously, folks —
Everybody in the neighborhood council movement wants to honor the spirit of open government and access for all — yet the city attorney's current interpretations of both federal and state law are just plain silly — and the city attorney should be working to remedy the situation, not issuing diktats that are, frankly, not being observed by very many neighborhood councils, particularly when it comes to working groups and subcommittees. |
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DEVELOPER PLANS HIGH-END CONDO UNITS
AT I-10 ENTRANCE TO PALMS
Click here for the story posted last month.
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CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES' CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES
Bill Rosendahl and Flora Gil Krisiloff are running the big-ticket campaigns for City Council in our area. Angela Reddock is far behind in raising money and in spending it.
Click here for the figures from the L.A. City Ethics Commission
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ANOTHER REASON WE LOVE PALMS
You see such interesting advertising art — in this case at Mario's taco stand at the car wash on the east side of Overland just north of McDonald's.
That is the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City
Click here to see some more advertising art and additional photos of the Palms area.
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